Present day packaging of electronic equipment makes use of a metal plate which serves as a backplane for mounting and interconnecting components or component subassemblies. In particular such techniques are utilized in the computer field where high density packaging is requisite. In connection with the mounting of large numbers of closely spaced electrical contacts in the metal backplane, solderless wire wrapping of the terminals for interconnections is often used. With the growing size and complexity of the electronic equipment, increasingly large numbers of electrical contacts are required to be mounted in a single span of metal backplane connections. It has been found that when the standard 0.080 inch aluminum backplane was used with the well known fork contacts, the forks being mounted on 0.100 centers, and having an array of approximately 4 rows of contacts each having about 60 contacts end-to-end, the pressure from the mating blade contacts caused a significant bow in the backplane. At the center of the row, the bow in the plate is at a maximum and results in an insufficient mating depth for the contacts. The present invention alleviates this problem, expands the number of contacts which may be placed end-to-end and hence the total number of contacts, and at the same time does not place any obstructions in the area of the wiring interconnections.